EXHIBITION | Bringing Hokusai to Life with Haptic Technology

Not to begin every article on a new exhibition with an opprobrious remark, but I never understood "immersive" art installations. Using music and fragrances to explain Van Gogh seemed to me like trying to cut bread with a spoon.

Part of the appeal of art is its ability to deal with limitations. Precisely by doing so, stoke the imagination to dreams of the impossible. That was what Japanese ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai was a master of.

Tokyu Plaza Shibuya is currently hosting one of these events on Katsushika Hokusai. Titled HOKUSAI: ANOTHER STORY in TOKYO, the installation features state-of-the-art technology, dynamic visuals, sound, and tactile experiences. Not a single original Hokusai in sight. And it was incredible.

Edo's Creative Director

As you enter, the exhibition begins innocuously enough with a simple but interesting section of panels detailing Hokusai's life, career, and significance. "Younger generations only recognize Hokusai as a historical figure from textbooks," explains Kazuya Yokoyama of Geek Wonders, the company behind the production.

I did not know about the distinctive blue hue that characterizes many of Hokusai's woodblock prints. A synthetic pigment known as "Vero indigo," it was discovered in Berlin in the early 18th century. Nor was I aware of just how many mediums he was involved in. From textile design to commercial advertisements to diagrammatic and scientific drawings, Hokusai was a master of many disciplines.

"In many ways, Hokusai was very much a modern, multifaceted artist," Yokoyama continues. "One of the key concepts behind this exhibition was the idea that Hokusai was essentially a creative director in his time." Instead of presenting Hokusai in a rigid, formal manner, Yokoyama and his team "aimed to showcase him from multiple angles for a more engaging introduction."

Room of Light

Moving into the exhibition's Room of Light is when the real exhibit starts. Hollowed bamboo sticks fitted with lights line a dim, winding corridor where eight panels showcase alternating images of Hokusai's paintings.

Light intermittently sweeps across the panels, briefly illuminating them before they fade back into the gallery's gentle darkness. "Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty," as the critic Junichiro Tanizaki said. "Because there was no electricity during the Edo period (1603-1868), we wanted to replicate how people at the time would have seen his works," Yokoyama says.

This was not the Las Vegas laser show I had pictured. Watching the texture and three-dimensionality of Groups of Mountain Climbers float gently into life under the flicker of the lights, I realized the organizers were not simply trying to repackage Hokusai for the TikTok generation. They were genuinely trying to help them understand him and his world.

Room of Earth

My late grandfather was a painter. Enamored of Hokusai, he spent hours showing me The 36 Views of Mt Fuji. We would both pore over the endless details with magnifying glasses. Cranes taking flight, leaves in the wind, men tossing things off dangerously high rooves.

Stepping into the exhibition's Room of Earth, all these minutiae are blown up and spring to life as you are pulled into the paintings. Cranes fly past your eyes in Umezawa Manor in Sagami Province. Snow falls from a tree behind you in Morning after the Snow in Koishikawa Edo and the floor turns into ice, which cracks as you walk across it.

Carp swim under your feet as you walk across the creaking wooden bridge in Fuji from the Katakura Tea Fields in Suruga. Ripples spread out as you wade through the water in Noboto Bay.

*Room of Earth at the HOKUSAI: ANOTHER STORY in TOKYO exhibition* *(Courtesy of Geek Wonders)*

With each crack in the ice and crunch of snow, the floor vibrates. This is thanks to an Active Slate, a pressure-sensitive surface that detects foot movements and provides real-time interactive feedback. Perhaps somehow sensing that I slept through six years of science at school, Yokoyama simply explains that the technology is the same vibrating Sony technology used in PlayStation games.

Room of Wind

In the Room of Wind, you are immersed in an aerial walk through Hokusai's landscapes using 2.5D animation and synchronized wind effects. Seamlessly blending eight of Hokusai's wind-inspired masterpieces, the room brings his delicate and intricate depictions of wind to life through dynamic wind haptics. Travelers bracing against the wind gallop past in Sekigaya Village on the Sumida River, and kites soar overhead in At Sea Off Kazusa.

Though the aerial walk feels open and free, the camera follows a mapped route based on real geography, moving from Tokyo Bay (At Sea off Kazusa) to Asakusa (Honganji at Asakusa in Edo). Covering eight locations, the animation weaves in real-world details not shown in the original prints — like hidden ships — rendered with matching textures

Just to give editors who have to keep images below 300kb a heart attack, the pixel count for these images is 300 million.

*Room of Wind at the HOKUSAI: ANOTHER STORY in TOKYO (Courtesy of Geek Wonders)*

A Floating World

I have been disabused of my cynical notions about immersive art. We all want to see every cranny, delicate hue, and trace of life in a painting. But our eyes fail us, and museum security guards restrain us.

Immersive exhibitions not only alleviate these issues but also offer a viable way of getting kids interested in art. Trying to get a generation of children who start using iPhones at age three to sit in front of a Caravaggio for two hours might not cut it. And for anyone who has ever had the "pleasure" of admiring a Dali from 25 meters away in a packed Tokyo gallery, immersive exhibitions are a godsend.

Ukiyo-e literally means "paintings of a floating world." And that is just what HOKUSAI: ANOTHER STORY in TOKYO has created.